Vjekoslav Škarica

Vjekoslav Škarica (24 December 1863 – 13 January 1945) was a Croatian and Yugoslavian politician and lawyer. He specialised in the maritime law.

Following the end of World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs appointed Škarica a member of the three-member provincial government of the former Austro-Hungarian crown land of Dalmatia, along with Ivo Krstelj and Josip Smodlaka (with deputies Prvislav Grisogono, Uroš Desnica, and Jerko Machiedo). The provincial government administered the region in the run-up to the arrival of Allies of World War I and their occupation of the eastern Adriatic in 1918.

In 1919, Škarica drew up, on his own initiative a proposal for the Maritime Act of the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). He was appointed a member of a committee of experts tasked with drawing up the Yugoslav Maritime Act in 1937. Some sources credit Škarica with the introduction of the Croatian legal term brodar, meaning the ship operator.